Quotes from Albert Camus

There is no more futile punishment than futile and hopeless labor.

Where would his torture be, indeed, if at every step the hope of succeeding upheld him?

The look of success, when it is worn a certain way, would infuriate a jackass.

I may not have been sure about what really did interest me, but I was absolutely sure about what didn't.

The workman of today works every day in his life at the same tasks, and this fate is no less absurd. But it is tragic only at the rare moments when it becomes conscious.

Man wants to live, but it is useless to hope that this desire will dictate all his actions.

Just as all thought, and primarily that of non-signification, signifies something, so there is no art that has no signification.

It was previously a question of finding out whether or not life had to have a meaning to be lived. It now becomes clear on the contrary that it will be lived all the better if it has no meaning

Mother died today. Or maybe yesterday; I can't be sure.

If there is a soul, it is a mistake to believe that it is given to us fully created. It is created here, throughout a whole life. And living is nothing else but that long and painful bringing forth.

Life is the result of all your choices.

If nothing had any meaning, you would be right. But there is something that still has a meaning.

... it is true that I do not respect [human life] more than I respect my own life. And if it is easy for me to kill, that is because it is difficult for me to die.

A man wants to earn money in order to be happy, and his whole effort and the best of a life are devoted to the earning of that money. Happiness is forgotten; the means are taken for the end.

A profound thought is in a constant state of becoming; it adopts the experience of a life and assumes its shape.

Every minute of life carries with it its miraculous value, and its face of eternal youth.

Your successes and happiness are forgiven you only if you generously consent to share them.

You are forgiven for your happiness and your successes only if you generously consent to share them.

Every achievement is a servitude. It compels us to a higher achievement.

We are all special cases.

Likewise and during every day of an unillustrious life, time carries us. But a moment always comes when we have to carry it.

I do not want to believe that death is the gateway to another life. For me, it is a closed door. I do not say it is a step we must all take, but that it is a horrible and dirty adventure.

As soon as one does not kill oneself, one must keep silent about life.

At the age of 40, having ordered meat very rare in restaurants all his life, he realized he actually liked it medium and not at all rare.